Semiconductor devices are used in a variety of electronic applications, such as personal computers, cell phones, digital cameras, and other electronic equipment. Semiconductor devices are typically fabricated by sequentially depositing insulating or dielectric layers, conductive layers, and semiconductor layers of material over a semiconductor substrate, and patterning the various material layers using lithography to form circuit components and elements thereon.
A resistive random-access memory (RRAM or ReRAM) is a new kind of non-volatile random-access computer memory. A resistive random-access memory works by changing the resistance across a solid-state material, and it is believed that it may be used to replace a flash memory in near future. However, although existing resistive random-access memories have generally been adequate for their intended purposes, as device scaling-down continues, they have not been entirely satisfactory in all respects.